Work

It helped me realize that…it helped me feel like I was worth something. You know, I had 65 people depending upon me for their paychecks, and making the decisions that I had to make to grow Sparkle Cleaning and keep that growing, really instilled something in me and helped me grow as a person. So I wrote a book about my experience and it’s called From the Pits to the Palace. It’s not really a rags to riches story, it is more personal growth.

In those days, the woman didn’t have a charge account in their name. But I got it, I got it. They say, “Well, it’s a woman --give me your husband’s name,” and I said, “No I’m not going to give you my husband’s name. The business is mine; the business hairdressing is not my husband’s, it’s mine. I’m the boss so why I can’t have it?” Well, they think about it and I got it. And when I tell my friends, “I got a charge account,” they asked, “How did you do it?” And I said “I just tell them-- it’s not my husband’s, it’s mine. I work, I built it, and why can’t I have a charge account?” My husband said, “You have a charge account?!!” [exclaims] And I said, “Big deal, I said, I’ll pay for it from my own money.”

I think it’s important for women to realize the commonality that we all share so that we can support each other rather than judge.

One of the places where I think women—or where I had challenges -- was the law profession is not equalized between men and women and that’s also one of the reasons why I’m in my own business.  Men still dominate the legal profession within larger firms in particular.  I would say they, as a whole, make a lot more money, they have wives—they have wives to do their housekeeping, take care of their children and so forth so it’s very different working in an environment where you’re expected to work 70 hours a week.  When it’s the mother who has the children to go home to, it’s very different.  It’s what the expectations are, and especially if you’re a new lawyer, you’re expected to just be there as long as necessary, sometimes 11 o’clock at night.  If the client’s needs demanded it, you just had to do the work: weekends, Sunday mornings, and so during the time that I was working at that rate, even though I was so-called part-time because I was only working 45 hours, I would go home, sometimes eight o’clock at night and I had not seen my children since seven o’clock that morning.  So you do feel that your—the balance is out of balance when that occurs.  It’s always a constant rebalancing act. 

See that was the tough thing.  Here I had this job that I absolutely adored, but I couldn’t travel.  Had a baby, you know, and, and that was when, you know, women were trying to have it all, and it’s really hard, and I desperately wanted to keep my job, and I also – but I also wanted to stay home so Tom McAn said well let’s see if we can make this work, and you can just be a consultant.  So for a year I tried working, and then I, you know, juggling the two, and to be honest, I just couldn’t do it.  Because the travel – I couldn’t travel, and I really wanted to be home, and I felt like I was doing neither job as well as I wanted to.  So I left Tom McAn, and stayed home for 13 years, which, which turned out to be great, you know what I mean?  That was exactly what I needed to do, and it was fabulous, but it was a wonderful job and I hated to leave it.  So – and now the job that I’m in now is part-time, and when I went back to work that is the perfect way to juggle family, and, and work.